Drivers try to keep their cars cool

Closed vehicles pose danger, officials say

Thomas Metthe/Reporter-News
A pair of cars with sun shades in their windows sit parked outside the Medical Mall on Antilley Road Tuesday, July 14, 2009.

Fact: Your car is hotter.

Fact: Temperatures in cars sitting in the sun can reach 150 degrees.

Here are some tips on how to cool down a hot car:

Things You'll Need: Towel, water

Step 1: Roll down all your windows, even your sun roof, to let the hot air out.

Even more effective is to stand outside your car with the doors open and let even more hot air out.

Step 2: If your steering wheel is too hot to touch, then dab some water on a tissue and wipe it off.

Even though the water is warm it will still cool it down. Also, carrying hand towels to put over your steering wheel will keep it from getting too hot to touch.

Step 3: If you have air conditioning, do step 1 and also turn it on and let it circulate throughout the car.

It should take a very short time, for the car to cool down. Once you get in then you can lower the A/C.

Step 4: If you cannot wait for the car to cool completely, then get in the car with the windows down and A/C going and drive a few blocks.

Roll up the windows when the temperature is comfortable.

SOURCE: eHow.com

With the leather seats in his black Dodge Nitro heating up in the West Texas sun, there’s not much Jon Hernandez can do to cool off quickly when he gets in his ride.

“Especially if you’re a big person,” he quipped, pointing at himself. “There’s nothing you can do.”

Hernandez and his wife, Melissa, are among those in the Big Country who are finding the 100-plus degree heat translating into much hotter conditions in their vehicles — temperatures NASA has concluded can exceed 150 degrees.

Like many, the couple have a few tricks to keep from burning their buns while waiting for the A/C in their Nitro to kick in.

Park in the shade, Jon offered. Or get a windshield shade.

Roll down your windows, Melissa countered.

Jon’s best advice: Lower your back windows while blasting the air conditioning to quickly move the hot air out of the vehicle.

It was advice Larry Cooper and his friend Ed Brown also follow, when they’re not inside a cool building trying to beat the heat.

Cooper left the driver’s side window of the 1996 Buick Roadmaster he was driving down to allow for some ventilation Tuesday evening in the parking lot of a local grocery store.

As the sun beamed down rays of burning heat, Cooper joked that to really beat the summer heat, “don’t buy a black car.”

Advice isn’t uncommon on the Internet.

One site suggests blowing the air conditioning in your vehicle toward your feet — to better circulate the air.

Whatever you do, experts suggest, don’t leave anyone in the car — even if you leave your car running.

“We recommend that they drink lots of water and only get in the car when necessary — and don’t stay there,” said Tela Mange, public information officer for the Texas Department of Public Safety.

According to Texas Department of State Health Services spokesman Emily Palmer, the thing her agency sees is people stopping somewhere, running into store, leaving the car running and the car dies — with no ventilation.

“Never leave anybody in a closed parked vehicle for any length of time,” Palmer said, pointing to the NASA study that concluded temperatures can reach 150 degrees inside a car when they are 100 degrees outside.

Sarah Schimmer, a spokeswoman for AAA Texas, said heat can be distracting and motorists should be alert as to what heat can do to vehicles.

It’s important, Schimmer said, for people to check tire pressure and vehicle fluid levels, such as for the engine and the brakes.

While low or high tire pressure can cause excessive wear and can also lead to blowouts, she said heat can lead to evaporation of fluids essential for cooling and keeping the vehicle appropriately running.